How could I catch interst of students when introducing a lesson on astronomy to 5th graders?

Question

I need a "set induction" for a lesson plan on how night and day occur and the phases of the moon. This is the introduction to the lesson where I would use interesting facts or a quick activity to catch the interest of the students. It doesnt have to be directly related to the lesson, but it needs to have a common thread.Then I would tie it into the lesson. any suggestions?

Answer 1

How about something dealing with the terminator - the line separating night and day. You could tell them (or maybe they could calculate it?) that if you walked at a fast pace (slower than a run) you could keep up with the terminator on the Moon.

Or maybe talk about shadows at different times of day, due to the varying altitude of the Sun. Some features on Mars (like the face on Mars) look very different when the Sun is low on the horizon (that's when it looks like a face) versus when the Sun is high (we have new pictures of the face on Mars when the Sun is high, and it looks virtually nothing like a face!). Also, there is at least one crater on the Moon where the bottom of it is in perpetual darkness (it's near the north or south pole), and I believe there's a mountain on the Moon that is always in sunlight (again at the north or south pole).

And do me a favor - at some point take them outside during the daytime to see that the Moon is up during the day sometimes. It always amazes me how many (otherwise intelligent) people think the moon is only up at night!

Answer 2

I was interested in astronomy when I was in the fifth grade, but I was weird. I liked science fiction back then (and still do), and my interest in astronomy probably came to me in the first place from Andre Norton's stories.

If I were teaching kids, I'd try to get them into celestial mechanics. I'm not sure exactly how I'd do that, since there's trigonometry involved, and differential calculus, and vector algebra. But I always believed that I could teach that stuff to a kid, if I ever got the chance to try. Unfortunately, my best chance was taken away from me when my ex-wife got custody of my daughter. But that's an old story.

Hm. Most kids probably aren't into astronomy. A view of the moon through a telescope would grab the attention of a few of them. A peek at Mars during a close pass would, too, but those don't always occur at convenient times. Saturn's rings. The Pleiades are nice to look at.

You could split an easy double star like Alberio and tell the kids that the two stars orbit around each other like the Earth orbits the sun.

Answer 3

I'm about to teach third graders a lesson in astronomy. What I'm going to do is show them a few beautiful pictures of space. The pictures should be related to what they will be studying. I am teaching them about seasons, the moon, and the solar system, and will show pictures like the phases of the moon, the sun through different filters, etc. Also, seeing what they know and understand before teaching any lessons would be helpful in your lesson plans, so that you aren't teaching them the same thing that they learned in previous years.

Answer 4

Interesting facts:
Earth's days are getting longer (the pull of the moon is slowing the rotation of the Earth). Earth is drifting away from the sun and the moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth. The moon was created when a Mars sized object hit the Earth. The moon supposedly formed in a few hours after the collision.

Get a lamp and two different sized balls. A basketball helps because it has visable poles and equator. You can also mention high and low tide.

Answer 5

You could try asking them some basic questions to show them how little they may understand the movements of the Earth and the Moon. Like, why do we have seasons? Can you see the Moon during the day? Is there really a dark side to the Moon? If we see a full Moon today, what does someone in China see?

Answer 6

1) use a globe.
--point to where "you/class" are. point to the place directly opposite.
--talk about how "over there" the children are not sitting in class, they are getting ready for bed, for example.....start them thinking about "last nyx" and get them to speculate about what the children around the other side of the world were doing while they were brushing their teeth.
....this introduces the idea that nyx and day are not at the same time for everyone on earth...it leads in to the reasons for that (earth revolves/rotates)


http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonglossary/moontrivia.htm
2) move on to earth's moon
--ask "if the earth moves around the sun, what moves around the earth?" answer: the moon
--ask "what is the official name of the earth's moon?" answer: moon
--bring up that ancient peoples had other names for the moon...
http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonnames.htm
http://www.fabandpp.org/cotm/moons.htm

--this leads into the idea of the moon looking different at different times of the month...
--the amount of light the moon gives off is directly related to it's shape (phase)...and, is important:
"...in early days, when farmers had no tractors, it was essential that they work by the light of the moon to bring in the harvest. this moon is the fullest moon of the year...."---the harvest moon
http://www.moonphases.info/links.asp?site=277

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/time/moon/phases.html


maybe you could take in some cheese
(pass it around at the end of the lesson)
and talk about what they ate last nyx...moving on to the belief that the moon is made of cheese, etc.....

"did anyone happen to eat part of the moon last nyx, 'cause it looked a little smaller to me than it did a week ago....."

new moon...full moon: which one do we want for halloween?
(the one with the most light....for trick-or-treating)

stuff like that
g'luck

Answer 7

i could be smarter in some issues than a 5th grader. I do tremendously solid at answering questions as quickly as I watch the instruct. i do no longer see any 5th graders on Wheel of Fortune and that i'm an ace at that. i'm happy i comprehend now, what i did no longer comprehend whilst i became in 5th grade. that could desire to respond to your question. ---{--@

Answer 8

At that age I wouldn't bore them with specifics or complex math but hook them with the beauty of the galaxies and pictures of nebula's,ect. Making 3d puzzles of planets would be cool then hang them from the ceiling in the correct order.

Heck, maybe even putting black paper on the ceiling tiles and paint on consellations, galaxies,ect. The whole class would look like a planetarium. :)

Answer 9

Mention that this guy named Eratosthenes was able to calculate the distance from earth to the moon, and from the eearth to the sun using just himself, his brain, and a stick! They are 5th graders, therefore won't understand his math/logic, so i wont try explain it.

Answer 10

maybe you could do this thing that i did where we tied black construction paper to our faces and took it off and there was a sun and stars and the used to be 9 planets. its was fun. like our teacher said 'put on your masks' and then we put them on and he told us things lie, you are now 10000000000 feet of the floor. there a gazillion stars around you. and after a few more interesting facts, he told us to take off the mask, and there was a whole lot of papers in shapes of planets and they were labeled and he sort of went over them and then he said okay class sit down and lets begin. except that's all i remember. i think there was a little more.....